


something's burning in my soul

by QueenWithABeeThrone



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), Daredevil (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Crack Treated Seriously, Fate, Multi, Non-Linear Narrative, Reincarnation, happy april fools' i played myself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 19:26:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14171841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenWithABeeThrone/pseuds/QueenWithABeeThrone
Summary: “Elektra,” says Matt, holding out a hand to stroke along Elektra’s cheek. She’s alive. She’s alive, and he wasn’t there when he should’ve been there, what was he doing—“Percy?” says Elektra, and that throws Matt off.or: legendary group of heroes takes opportunity to reincarnate into a new group of heroes! what happens next will shock you!(Matt Murdock, and the burden of Percy de Rolo's soul.)





	something's burning in my soul

**Author's Note:**

> title is from American Authors' "Oh, What A Life".
> 
> fuck, this was supposed to be crack. I pranked myself.
> 
> this is probably relevant to like three people, including me, but whatever, it's out there now. spoilers for: Daredevil, The Defenders (and associated series), and the first campaign of Critical Role.

The worst thing is—

He _gets it._ He gets why Frank would snap, after all of that. He sits on the roof of the church until the sirens have faded too much for even him to keep track of, and he _gets it._

A whole life, a whole family, a whole future—gone, _poof_ , just like that.

Some part of Matt, buried deep within, knows exactly how that feels like. Knows exactly how good it feels, a gun in his hand and an enemy at his feet.

But he doesn’t acknowledge it. At least not consciously. At least not—

\--

(They called Vax fate-touched, once.

The thing about fate is that it touches more than one person, and the thing about fate is that it’s grown fond of this motley little group of shits, and the thing about fate is that it’s cruel enough to take and twist and—

The thing about stories is that they end. The thing about stories: they start again, and sometimes in patterns.

A boy loses a family. This does not change.

The rest of it does.)

\--

Sometimes Matt stops in place as Foggy’s chattering happily away, off-kilter somehow because of—because of—he isn’t sure what, exactly, but a feeling of not-quite-rightness settles over him and sticks him fast to the ground.

There should be more, he thinks, than just him and Foggy.

“Yeah, there _should be_ ,” says Foggy, with a light laugh. “God, could you imagine, us having employees? Actual employees we can boss around, who could make our coffee for us? Imagine it!”

“God, _yes_ ,” says Matt, reverently, a hand on Foggy’s elbow. The feeling slips away as fast as it came, and Matt lets himself settle back into Foggy’s side. Here and now, he knows this in his bones: this is home, this is where he belongs.

\--

Kissing Claire isn’t _wrong_ , per se. It’s just that something’s off, something’s missing. He doesn’t know what it is, though, not for sure, and he doesn’t get to grasp it for himself until it’s too late, and she’s already gone. It’s the same with Karen—something is missing, still.

Kissing Elektra isn’t _wrong_ per se. They’ve always slotted together weirdly well, broken pieces fitting together to create something that could look whole from a distance. It’s just that something’s off, somehow.

Kissing Foggy happens the one time, and his lips still tingle at the memory. It hadn’t felt wrong, but it hadn’t felt like the world had been set right at last, either.

(One day he’ll realize: he’s set his standards too high, based them off half-remembered memories and hazy dreams.

One day.)

\--

Jessica Jones is an abrasive mess of a woman. Jessica snarls and snaps and snarks, doesn’t hesitate to hit an old woman, throws a car through a window to make an entrance. Jessica drinks so much it’s a wonder she hasn’t died of liver poisoning, though Matt half-believes it’s the superhuman abilities at work here.

Jessica, he’s surprised to hear, does not have red hair.

“Why the hell were you expecting me to have _red hair_?” she says, incredulously, on their way to his apartment. Her hair brushes against her scarf, rasping against the woolly fabric.

He shrugs. “Just an idle thought,” he says, dismissively. “You sounded like a redhead I saw on TV, before my accident,” he adds, although that’s a filthy lie: he doesn’t know why he thought her hair was red. He doesn’t even know why he’s surprised, or why he feels a little— _lighter_ , around her.

Jessica doesn’t call him out on the lie, though, just huffs out a breath. They keep walking.

If her hand brushes absently against a tree as they pass, he doesn’t comment either. They’ve all got their weird tics.

\--

Foggy hums, sometimes, little bits and pieces of song that sound familiar. Matt learns to live with it, learns to love it as part of what makes Foggy _Foggy_.

Finals hits, and Foggy’s humming becomes a lifeline, somehow. He puts words to the music, and suddenly it’s like Matt can do anything. Can finish this _stupid fucking exam_ in no time flat and only a couple of Red Bulls.

“ _Fi_ nally,” crows Foggy, after the last paper is turned in and they’ve been released into the open world. “We’re free! Free at last!”

“Free for the next couple of weeks,” Matt says, but he can’t keep the giddiness out of his voice either. Maybe it’s the sleep-deprivation at work, but when he sucks the air in, it’s like he’s breathing the New York air for the first time. He breathes out and laughs, high and clear.

“Shut _up_ , Matt, oh my god, please don’t _say_ that,” says Foggy, vaguely slapping at his shoulder. “Just bask in it! Back in the glory! ‘Cause _we are the champioooooons_ —”

Matt lets the song wash over him, lets it lift him up and up and up. For a moment he thinks, absently, _I bet Grog would like this,_ before the thought slips away like sand through his fingers.

\--

“Don’t you think you could be made for more than this?” says Elektra once. They’re lying on the ring at Fogwell’s, clothes scattered all around them, and Elektra’s tracing circles over his bare chest with her finger.

“More than what?” says Matt.

“More than this city,” says Elektra. “You could travel, you know. You and I, we could see the sights.”

And it feels right, it does, to lean down and kiss her, to tell her, “Or we could stay here—find a hotel room, get some ice cream, stay there forever.”

“I like the way you think, darling,” says Elektra, her voice a purr, and Matt shivers at the endearment. He can work with that, he thinks. Wherever she goes, he’s sure he’ll follow.

\--

She bleeds out in his arms, and the world breaks and shatters around him.

_Sweetheart, darling, Matthew, love_ —

Her body is cold in his arms and he can’t, he can’t, he _can’t_ , her brother will never forgive him for this and he knows he would deserve it—

The thought slips away, fast as it came.

\--

“Are you religious, Karen?”

Karen tucks her hair behind her ear when she’s trying to think. She says, “My parents were,” and Matt has an odd moment of _off_ before the world seems to right itself again, “that’s probably why I’m not.”

He wonders why he thought she would be. Might be, for a brief moment. He shakes it off, like he always does, and goes on.

\--

Frank Castle tapes a gun to his hand, tells him: _you’re a half-measure._

Tells him: _you hit them and they get back up, I hit them and they stay down._

Tells him: _kill me, and end this._

He almost does.

That’s what scares Matt the most. It’d be easy, to put a gun to someone’s head and pull the trigger, even if Matt’s blind. It’d be easy to take a life, god knows Matt’s thought about it before. He’d aim true, long-buried instincts clawing their bloody way back up to the forefront of his mind, and he’d just pull the trigger.

But he doesn’t. He won’t.

The chains shatter.

\--

They say that the Murdock boys have the devil in them.

Sometimes Matt smells smoke, lingering on the edges of his senses, and wonders if that’s not as metaphorical as it seems to be. But the smoke always fades away.

At least it does, until Elektra comes back into his life with the scent of smoke under her perfume, says, “Hello, Matthew.”

(Stories shift, bodies change, and _he_ seeps in and knows: this time, the girl, touched by fate as her brother was and is, trying to find herself. He comes to her in a dream, whispers, _I can help you find who you are meant to be._

And Elektra does not know what it means when she says _yes._ )

\--

Foggy is his best friend. Foggy is his _family_.

( _Was anything ever real with us?_ )

The thing about family is that family leaves.

( _You think you care about me?_ )

He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s _fine._

He—isn’t fine, okay. He can’t breathe through the hurt, the betrayal, the self-hatred that’s risen in his throat. Everyone leaves, he should’ve seen that coming a mile away.

But he sits in his apartment, and it still smells of Foggy, his scent seeping into every corner, and he curls up on his couch and his ribs all but scream in pain, and he just—he just—

_Tough shit,_ he can hear Stick say, in the back of his head, _you should’ve cut him off years ago._

But he never could, and now everything feels _wrong wrong wrong_ , it shouldn’t feel this way, it shouldn’t _be_ this way.

But it is.

\--

“You’re fate-touched, boy,” Madame Gao says. Her bones creak as she moves, her ancient voice a mild, soft thing, and yet something about her screams _danger_. Matt clenches his teeth.

Not for the first time, his hand drops to his hip, closes around empty air.

For the first time, though, someone notices, because Gao says, “Do you see? Even now, even in this life, there are things you cannot truly get rid of. Things fate has decreed.”

“I,” says Matt, “don’t give a shit.”

And he charges forward.

“So reckless,” sighs Gao, and does— _something_ , Matt’s not sure what, but it sends him flying back into a wall, dazed. For a minute he thinks _Vex will not be happy if I don’t come home,_ but the thought flies away before Matt can truly grasp it.

When he stands back up, Gao is gone.

\--

“You are the Black Sky,” says Nobu, “your destiny is to lead us.”

And it’s wrong. It’s _wrong_. Matt tries to tell Elektra as much, because fuck destiny, _fuck_ whatever it says, but Stick brings it crashing down anyway.

She draws her sword. He steps closer, and almost dares her to put it through his throat. Reckless, he knows. Stupid, stupid, _stupid_.

But she doesn’t, and hope kindles in his chest, anyway.

\--

Karen leaves too, and that perhaps is a blow Matt hadn’t quite expected.

“I still love you, I just—” she stops. Sighs. Her hand rests over her desk, something she bought at a garage sale, made of aged wood. “You’ve lied to me since the first day we knew each other, so I don’t know where we stand.”

Matt swallows back his hurts. He’s gotten good at that, lately. “I’ll be here,” he says. “When you know. You can trust me on that.”

Karen steps forward, her hand skimming across his cheek. “Thank you for that,” she says, quiet. “And for saving my life, that first day.”

And she walks away, and it _hurts_ in a familiar fashion. He chalks it up to having gone through this before, with Foggy, and at least he knows now he can survive this.

But there’s a difference to this hurt, somehow. Like this time, he doesn’t know if she’s going to come back like she always does, because even if she leaves she always comes through for them, wielding her holy symbol like a light against the darkness.

Matt shakes his head after a moment, to clear away the sudden feeling of vertigo. Karen isn’t religious. Karen doesn’t have a holy symbol. Karen holds truth like a light against the dark, like a sword made of fire, she doesn’t do the same for faith.

But he can’t get rid of the idea, all the way home.

\--

“You guys felt that, right?” says Rand in the elevator, almost vibrating out of his skin. “What we did, just now?”

“No one talk about what we did just now, please,” Jessica groans. She’s just taken out the security camera, and Matt’s still nervous, still feeling the adrenaline. Still reeling from Elektra.

_Elektra._ It shouldn’t be possible. She shouldn’t be alive. He’d buried her, mourned her, moved on because what else can you do, after all, when someone you love is dead and gone? You can’t bring them back.

But he’s stupidly, selfishly relieved she came back, anyway, smoke and all.

“Agreed,” says Luke. “We need to get out of here, first, and find some place to lay low.”

“And we need to prepare,” says Matt, “for the possibility of having to fight our way out again.”

“Oh, god, no,” says Jessica, “not _more_ kung fu.”

“Come on, you guys felt it,” mutters Danny. “What we did, together? That was _right._ ” His heart skips a beat, and Matt knows that even in his enthusiasm, he’s keeping something back about that feeling.

It’s the same feeling Matt’s got—that sense that something is off-kilter, that they’re fewer than they should be, that they’re not quite right somehow just yet. There’s a sense that they’re not filling the roles they filled once, except—

They’ve never even met before, so what roles would they even have filled?

\--

Claire slams a baseball bat into a man’s head with a surprising amount of rage, and growls, “Son of a _bitch_ —”

“Hey,” says Matt, moving in closer. Her heart is racing fast against her chest, her bones shifting and groaning like old ships. Her fingers are locked tight around the baseball bat. “Claire, hey, it’s fine.”

Claire breathes in, then out. In, then out.

The bat clatters to the ground, and she all but collapses into Matt’s arms.

“Oh, god,” she says, “oh god oh god oh god—”

“It’s okay,” Matt says, soothing her, a hand on the nape of her neck. This is a strange place to be comforting someone in, the middle of a Russian gangster’s garage with unconscious bodies all around them, and yet somehow—it doesn’t feel strange. “It’s okay, I’ve got you, I’m here.”

“Get me out of here,” says Claire, “before I—before I do something I regret.”

And he does.

\--

(They don’t— _talk_ about it, much, but Karen feels a connection to Claire from the first moment they meet, after Matt tells Karen.

“I hear you’re in the club now,” is the first thing Claire says to her, with a bottle of beer in hand.

“It’s a shitty club,” Karen agrees. “I’ve, uh, I’ve got some ales in my fridge.”

Claire raises an eyebrow, leaning against Karen’s doorway. Claire is not the first person to have showed up at Karen’s to induct her into the Matt Murdock Is An Asshole Club officially, that had been Foggy, but she is the first person Karen’s met this way, and so Karen is hardly surprised when she says, “You offer everyone who drops by here ale?”

“Not everyone,” says Karen. “You just—seem like an ale girl, honestly.”

“I kind of am,” Claire admits, straightening up. Karen gets a sense of vertigo, somehow, like she should be looking _up_ at Claire instead of down. “I didn’t know you kept ale.”

“I used to get so much shit from Foggy for it,” says Karen, with a huff of laughter. Matt had liked the ale just fine, but she doesn’t really want to talk about Matt right now. There’s—There’s just too much to sort through. “He thought I was a hipster or something.”

“He’s missing out,” says Claire. “Can I come in?”

“Of course,” says Karen, warmly, and Claire steps inside, shuts the door behind her.)

\--

“I can see you’ve formed a bond here,” says Alexandra. “I shouldn’t be so surprised—fate moves around the three of you.” She steps closer towards Danny, places a sickly-smelling hand on his shoulder. “You, more than the others. But it _moves_ around you three, and it’s made it much easier for you to bond.”

Matt can _hear_ the smile in her tone, when she says to Danny, “I promise you, it won’t last. The more connections you have, the easier it will be to break you.”

\--

“Elektra,” says Matt, holding out a hand to stroke along Elektra’s cheek. She’s alive. She’s _alive_ , and he wasn’t _there_ he should’ve been there what was he _doing_ —

“Percy?” says Elektra, and that throws Matt off for a moment. _Who—_

Then one of the Hand’s leaders bursts through the doors, spits something in Japanese, and the next thing Matt knows the man has been knocked flat on his ass, and Matt himself is on his back on the ground too, still reeling, smoke filling his nostrils. _Who the hell is Percy?_ he wonders.

He says this to Stick, once they’re at the warehouse. “She said a name,” he says. “Percy—do you know who that is?”

“Ah, hell,” Stick mutters, shaking his head. “They fucked something up. They tried to stuff something else into her body, but they didn’t think about the _other_ one.”

“What other one, Stick?” says Matt, the devil inside him clawing at his ribs. He stomps ruthlessly down: he needs answers, and he can’t get them if he snaps at Stick even more than he already has.

“The reason _why_ she’s fate-touched,” says Stick. “You think it’s just coincidence, that the four of you were brought together? You, the smartass PI, the hero of Harlem, the kid with the glowing fist?” He snorts out a derisive laugh. “If you really think that, Matty, you’re dumber than I ever thought you were.”

“ _Fate-touched,_ ” says Matt, annoyed. “First Gao says it, then that woman Alexandra goes on about it, now you.”

“She’s not wrong,” says Stick. “Hate to admit that, but she’s not wrong.” He tilts his head towards the general direction of the other three, and their hostage. “He’ll know it too. My advice? Whatever he says, ignore it. _Especially_ if it’s about the thing in Elektra’s body.”

“What thing?” says Matt.

“Didn’t you smell the smoke?” says Stick.

\--

There’s smoke in his apartment, ashes in his Bible. Jessica looks out the window, and Matt tells her about the billboard and the co-op almost rioting.

He doesn’t tell her about the smoke.

\--

“Confession time,” Foggy says, while they’re walking back to Matt’s apartment after a night spent drinking to their victory over some doctor named _Ripley_ , “you were kinda terrifying in court today. It was pretty badass, and also kinda scary, but mostly badass.”

“Yeah?” says Matt. He’s feeling pleasantly buzzed tonight, fingers pressing into the inside of Foggy’s elbow.

“Yeah!” says Foggy. “Did she—listen, you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but did you run into Ripley in your, uh, side job? Was she up to anything super evil?”

Matt shakes his head. “Tell you the truth,” he says, “I didn’t even know she existed until we got this case.”

“Huh,” says Foggy. “Kinda seemed personal.”

“Seemed personal to you, too,” Matt points out. “You were pretty much shredding her lawyer’s arguments apart there.”

“And what fun it was,” says Foggy, with a sigh. “Eh, she was a total asshole, she deserves the prison time.”

Matt’s inclined to agree. It’s not that he holds a grudge against her, he’s never even met her before now. It’s just that—he’d heard her name, heard her _voice_ , and all his alarms had been tripped then and there. He couldn’t let her take a step outside the courthouse a free woman.

He can’t explain it, though, doesn’t even know how to begin explaining it. They’ve gone up against assholes before, even defended a couple, but he and Foggy—they’ve never been so _vicious_.

“She do anything to you, though?” says Matt.

“I’ve never even _met_ her before this case,” says Foggy. “I just had a bad feeling about her.”

Matt breathes out, leans into Foggy’s warmth. “Now you won’t have to,” he says, and for a moment he remembers the smell of smoke and ashes.

They keep walking.

\--

“ _Fate-touched,_ ” Sowande hisses out, with a laugh. “You let your city die. What must your goddess think? Or—”

“I don’t _have_ a goddess,” says Danny, fists clenching. His heart rate’s kicked up, less because he’s lying and more because of his adrenaline. “You got something wrong.”

“Have I?” says Sowande, and Matt doesn’t need to see to know he’s smiling at Danny, smug and calm, like he knows something that none of them do. “Ah, yes—that must’ve been the _other_ one, who gained the favor of a goddess so long ago. Danny Rand is not so important.”

“ _What_ other one?” snaps Danny.

“No one,” says Sowande. “A raven to your mouse, perhaps.” He chuckles a little, like he’s enjoying his own little private joke. “What fun tricks does destiny play.”

“If you’re finished being cryptic,” says Luke, evenly, “tell us what the Hand wants in this city, that involves young men from Harlem.”

“And _stalking a grieving family_ ,” says Jessica.

“And the Iron Fist,” says Danny.

Matt doesn’t say anything, but he shifts closer to Danny, almost instinctively. Whatever the Hand wants with Danny, it can’t be good. Look what they’ve done to his sister.

_Sister?_ Matt wonders. Elektra and Danny aren’t related at all, so how—

Sowande’s talking again, _the reporter, the woman on the radio, the pretty nurse, the boy you let die in a jail cell, the man who got into your head so long ago_ , and Matt is almost stupidly relieved that he doesn’t mention Foggy. Angry he threatened Karen, yes, so angry that Matt’s fingers clench into a fist and he’s tempted so _tempted_ —

Jessica knocks Sowande out before Matt can do it. “He talked too much,” she says, but her breathing is shaky and ragged.

\--

“I like it here.”

“Back in New York?”

( _I should have told you: it’s yours._ )

“Back with you.”

(And the smoke coils around her and whispers: _they took you from him, they took you from peace, they took everything from you._

She breathes it in, breathes out. _I know you,_ she whispers back, then: _Will you help me take it all back? Rip it back from their hands? Please. Please, give me this—_

_Yes,_ the smoke croons, and it engulfs her and floods her and _chokes_ her. _Yes, yes, yes, we will be unstoppable._

Elektra wakes up, and for the first time in a long time, knows who she is.

And knows who else she is.

_What have you done?_ thinks Vex’ahlia.)

\--

There’s a moment, during the fight, when Matt half-expects to hear an arrow whistling through the air.

He doesn’t, and listening almost costs him. He shakes his head, shakes off that off-kilter feeling, and gets back to work, launching off the crate to kick an assault rifle out of a Yakuza member’s hands.

When he and Elektra meet back up, she laughs and says, “Fun, wasn’t it?”

He’s got to prepare an opening statement. He has a client to defend in court, a partner to not let down, but god—he can’t deny that it felt _right_ to be doing this.

His hand, absently, drops to his hip, fingers closing around his sticks.

\--

Matt smells the smoke first, before he hears anything. He takes off before Jessica can call him back, pushes the door open and stops in his tracks.

Smoke, and perfume, standing over Stick with a sword in her hand. The smoke is acrid in his nostrils, almost suffocating him. Around them are members of the Hand, and Luke and Danny are—

They’re okay. (Luke is _alive_ , and somehow that fills him with more relief than almost everything else. But why—) They’re okay, but their heartbeats are sluggish and slow, and there’s something in the air that smells like incense, and a faint trace of—oh, god. Oh, god, this was a bad idea.

“Elektra?” he says.

Elektra raises her head. She breathes out. “Matthew,” she says, then chuckles to herself. “Right name this time,” she murmurs.

Then the sword comes down, stabs into Stick’s chest.

“ _No!_ ”

\--

“Do you know,” says Elektra, once. They’re in the backseat of an expensive car that Matt’s pretty sure does not actually belong to her, and they’re both sweaty and smelly, sticking fast to the fine leather upholstery. Outside the city lights hum, distant cars play distant music, someone’s drunkenly singing Broadway as they stagger down the street. “Do you know: when I was younger, I wanted a bear.”

“Really,” says Matt. Elektra and a _bear_ , wouldn’t that be funny.

“ _Really_ ,” says Elektra, a finger delicately tapping the tip of his nose. “I used to annoy everyone, asking so much after a bear cub. I’d even decided to call him Trinket, I was so set on having one and taking him with me to live in the mountains.”

“I take it that it didn’t happen,” says Matt, carding his fingers through her hair. They don’t need to leave this car just yet. “Or else you’d be out there, riding a bear, living out in the mountains.”

“Alas, it didn’t,” says Elektra, and there’s a real sadness in her sigh. “My father was not quite keen on having a bear cub in our house and near his daughter, god only knows why. So I never got Trinket, and I never did make it out to the mountains.”

“Probably for the best,” says Matt. “If you got Trinket and ran off to a mountain range somewhere, we never would’ve met.”

“You’d be surprised,” says Elektra, tracing a lazy pattern on his chest. Her nail drags lightly over his skin, and he shivers. “Fate finds a way, sometimes.”

“Fate, huh?” says Matt.

Elektra hums, says, “Maybe,” and kisses him again.

\--

_Fate-touched,_ said Alexandra.

_Fate-touched,_ said Stick.

_Fate-touched,_ said Sowande.

“You guys have any clue what that means?” says Luke, as they’re on the train up to Midland Circle. “What they were all talking about? Because I’m starting to wonder about this whole _other one_ nonsense that White Hat spouted when Matt nearly strangled him.”

“I’m not,” says Jessica. “I just want to get this shit over with so I can go home.”

Matt drums his fingers against his thigh, swallows back the bile that rises in his throat. This is why he hates having to take the subway. He can feel _every vibration_ through his seat, never mind all the lingering smells of vomit and sweat and cologne and perfume and shit. His stomach churns uneasily, and he chalks it up to the smell.

“The Hand,” he says, “called Elektra the Black Sky.”

“The hell does that even mean?” says Jessica.

“It means they thought of her as their destined weapon,” says Matt. “They’re very big on fate and destiny, apparently.”

“They have a very creative interpretation, you mean,” Luke points out. “Danny, too.”

“Yeah, with all that rambling about the four of us teaming up not being a coincidence,” says Jessica, derisively. “If you ask me, his way of making friends needs a fuckload of work.”

“He grew up in an isolated community, as far as I can tell,” says Luke. “That might explain it, and a lot of other things.”

“You think he grew up in a cult?” says Jessica.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” says Luke. “But even with all that, something’s still not right. You guys know that, right?”

“That we’re walking into a goddamn trap, yeah,” says Jessica, taking another sip from her second stolen can of beer. Matt holds back the bile rising in his throat at a particularly bumpy section of the ride.

“Not that,” says Luke. “If it _was_ just this Black Sky thing, with Matt’s ex, then what was that with Danny? Why did White Hat go on about Danny gaining the favor of a goddess, or whatever?”

“You heard the guy, he thought Danny was somebody else,” says Jessica.

“No,” says Matt, connecting the dots, “no, he knew what he was doing. He was talking about something someone _before_ Danny, but connected to him in some way, did.” Connected by fate, perhaps—argh, no, all this talk about fate and destiny is starting to seep into his own thoughts, _ugh._

“Maybe someone who had that glowing fist power before he did?” Luke guesses.

“His fist glows?” says Matt. “I just thought it _smelled_ weird.”

\--

(Elektra says, “We don’t have to fight.”

Vex’ahlia thinks, heartbroken, _brother, please, I’m here._

It’s easier to tell the line between the two now, and for the moment Elektra’s clear on who she is. For the moment. She’ll make it last longer, claw back every stolen bit of herself and make something out of it, a measure, a definition.

“Fighting is all that the Hand knows,” snarls Rand, and Elektra ignores how her heart breaks in her chest, stomps down on the urge to give in and step closer and reach out to take Rand’s hand. She can’t. She _can’t_. If she does then Vex wins and she can’t let that happen because what, then, happens to Elektra Natchios? She’s only just gotten herself _back_.

Anyway, Rand is not her brother, no matter who they were to each other in a past life.

“I’m not the Hand,” says Elektra, and she tells him the truth. As much of the truth as she can, anyway, because Elektra is not Vex’ahlia and Danny Rand is not her brother, but she has to make him understand. Has to get him to open the door, somehow.

“You sound like your master Alexandra.”

“Alexandra’s dead,” says Elektra. “I killed her.” _My name is Elektra Natchios,_ she had said, barely hesitating, not thinking about the other one itching at the back of her head, _you all work for me now._ “Because I wanted to.” And her soul is forfeit now, gone to hell or somewhere, wherever.

She gives in then, steps closer to Rand. “And you ran away from K’un-Lun,” she says. “Because you wanted more than that.” She tells him more, spills out what feels like her hurts and her dreams and her secret wish for a future, for something beyond the Black Sky and the destiny that lies in wait. She tells him all of this because god _fucking_ dammit Vex’ahlia is still in the back of her head and she cannot unsee her twin, who she could always talk to except—

Elektra has never had a _twin._ This is the Iron Fist, and she needs him to open the door. Needs him so she can see what lies beyond, so she can finally start again.

So she goads him, further and further, until he snaps and throws a punch, and then Elektra pushes Vex’ahlia down, down, down, and launches herself into the fight, and if smoke trails after her, if she casts a Hex under her breath to keep him down—

It’s worth it. It has to be. It has to be. Her revenge, her identity, her fresh start, they have to be worth this. They have to be.

...aren’t they?)

\--

Matt hangs back and says to Claire, quietly, “You okay?”

“No,” says Claire. “I’m not okay.” She lets out a long, slow breath, and says, in a calm tone of voice with a fury simmering underneath, “I’m angry. And not just _fuck me this is a long shift_ angry. I mean _you_ angry.”

He swallows, and says, “You won’t need to be angry for long. We’ll take them out, we’ll make sure they stay down this time.”

“Come back,” says Claire, breathing in then out once more. “All right? You, Luke, Jessica, Danny— _come back._ ”

Matt nods. “I will,” he says, taking her hand. “You and Ms. Wing have to take care of yourselves, too.”

“I will,” says Claire. Her hand slips out of his, and the moment passes and she goes.

“Get a move on, devil-boy!” Jessica shouts, and Matt gets a move on.

\--

“If you told me a week ago that I’d be here, with you two,” starts Jessica, “about to blow up a building and fight ninjas to save New York…”

She lets her voice trail off, echoing into the silence.

“For whatever it’s worth,” says Matt, “I’m glad you’re here.” And he means it, and it’s true, this is almost, _almost_ right. There’s still something missing, something Matt can’t quite put a finger on, and he’s become more and more aware of this ever since Elektra first spoke another man’s name, but this—him, Jessica, Luke, and even Danny—this is the closest he’s come to it being _right_.

Jessica’s hair brushes against her scarf. Luke’s breath comes out in a quick little disbelieving huff, and for a second Matt half-thinks, _this would be much easier if either of you could still fly_ , before the thought dissipates like smoke.

“What?” says Jessica.

“Circumstances could be better, I’m just saying,” says Matt, backtracking a little, “but I’m glad we found each other.”

( _You know you’re family, right?_

_I will try and do my best for you all._

_Together we are far greater than the sum of our parts._ )

“I’m not hugging you,” says Luke, and Matt huffs out a laugh, shakes his head to clear away the lingering feelings of— _vertigo_ , somehow. “You all right?”

“Yeah,” says Matt. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You guys ready,” says Jessica, annoyed, “or what?”

\--

If there’s one thing that Matt regrets, just the one thing—it’s not holding on to Foggy for a little while longer. Not being able to hold Karen one last time.

Because this is the last time, he knows it. He can smell the smoke from here—smoke, and decay now as well. There’s a body under this building, there is death and death alone waiting for them, and Matt knows fully well that one of them won’t be walking out of this alive. And everyone else is—

Danny has a life. Luke has a life. Jessica, too, has a wreckage of a life, but it’s there all the same. Matt’s still got one too, and god, does he want to come back to it, but he weighs it against the other three, against the chance that maybe he can get Elektra out of this alive, and he knows deep within his soul that they win out over him.

“You guys smell that?” says Jessica, her hands resting on the railing.

“Yeah,” says Luke, as he’s pulling Matt up, “the smoke?”

“You’re only smelling that now?” Matt says.

“Whaddaya mean, just now?” says Jessica. “How long have you been smelling smoke?”

Matt huffs out a breath. “I thought it was just me,” he says. “I’ve been smelling smoke off Elektra for a while now. _Before_ the four of us met, and no one else smelled it, so I chalked it up to smelling things.”

“Is that even possible?” says Luke.

“You’re fucking with me,” says Jessica.

“Believe me, I’m not,” Matt calls back down, and lets Luke haul him up into their designated hiding places. He’s pretty strong, something Matt’s distantly surprised by before he dismisses the note of wonder—Luke’s not a light man by any means, even setting the superhuman strength aside, and he walks like a man who knows the kind of power he has at his disposal. Of course he could more than take Matt’s weight.

But some part of Matt can’t help but think of someone else, of red scales hanging back in the distance—

_Scales?_

“God fucking dammit,” says Jessica, as the elevator reaches the final story.

**Author's Note:**

> cheat sheet so you can all laugh at the irony of some of these choices:
> 
> Matt Murdock = Percy de Rolo  
> Foggy Nelson = Scanlan Shorthalt  
> Karen Page = Pike Trickfoot  
> Claire Temple = Grog  
> Luke Cage = Tiberius Stormwind  
> Elektra Natchios = Vex'ahlia  
> Danny Rand = Vax'ildan  
> Jessica Jones = Keyleth
> 
> (not appearing in this fic: Trish Walker = Cassandra de Rolo.
> 
> also not showing up in this fic: Vex yelling swear words in the back of Elektra's head, or Jessica figuring out how to shapeshift.)


End file.
